The US military has established a shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz that is allowing millions of barrels of oil to leave the Gulf each day despite the war with Iran, Axios reported, citing two US officials.

“There is a tremendous amount of oil coming out of the Strait of Hormuz,” US President Donald Trump told Axios on Wednesday. He also said Washington is not currently negotiating with Iran.

The operation has been underway for several weeks, the officials reportedly said. It allows 15 to 20 tankers to pass through the strait each night using a southern channel along the coast of Oman, according to Axios.

About 10 million barrels of oil per day are now moving through the strait, roughly half the pre-war level, the officials said.

A senior Russian military official said Israel risks ceasing "to exist as a state", claiming Tel Aviv's main objective is to escalate the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and draw the US and NATO into the war.

Apti Alaudinov, deputy chief of the Russian military’s Main Military-Political Directorate and commander of the Akhmat special forces, told state news agency TASS that the regional conflict is likely to intensify further.

"We must realise that the war in the Middle East will only escalate. I believe that is precisely Israel’s objective to ramp up the conflict as much as possible and drag both the US and the entire NATO bloc into it," Alaudinov said.

Ultimately, he warned, Israel "will overestimate their strength and cease to exist as a state."

A Canadian government official has condemned Israel’s “unlawful invasion” of Lebanon, saying Beirut should govern its own space and have sovereignty over its lands.

Randeep Sarai, Canada’s Secretary of State for International Development, visited Lebanon to announce new humanitarian aid to the crisis-hit country, where the UN says some 360,000 people remain displaced because of Israeli attacks.

“We have been working actively, I think, through diplomatic channels to do whatever possible to stop that and to allow Lebanese communities that are from those areas to be able to move back," Sarai said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The Yemeni army has said that it had successfully foiled an infiltration attempt by Houthis near Yemen’s southwestern city of Taiz.

Yemen’s official Saba news agency quoted an unnamed military source as saying that army forces had “forced Houthi elements to flee and retreat” from the area.

The source did not provide any additional details regarding the alleged infiltration attempt.

Lebanon has said it had received an invitation from France for a meeting to prepare for an international conference on support for the Lebanese army.

The conference in Paris was supposed to take place in March but was delayed after the US-Israeli war on Iran and subsequent Israeli strikes on Lebanon.

Lebanon said in a statement that President Joseph Aoun had "received from the French charge d'affaires in Lebanon, Bruno Da Silva, a letter from French President Emmanuel Macron that included an invitation for Lebanon to participate in a preparatory meeting to be held in Paris on September 17".

At least two people were killed when the town of Mayfadoun was rocked by an explosion amid ongoing Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon that have included airstrikes, artillery barrages and ground incursions.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) attributed the explosion to a “suspicious object” left behind from a previous Israeli attack.

NNA also reported that a fire had broken out in the nearby town of Mansouri after an Israeli drone dropped explosive ordnance in the area.

Several US government agencies have warned that unidentified hackers are trying to breach devices made by Siemens that are used to monitor and operate water facilities and other critical infrastructure systems, according to a cybersecurity advisory.

The warning comes amid widespread cyber incidents targeting local water systems in multiple states in recent weeks in attacks cybersecurity experts suspect are linked to Iran.

Britain has added seven new designations under its Iran sanctions regime, a notice on the government's website showed.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani arrived in Riyadh as part of a state visit to Saudi Arabia.

According to a Saudi foreign ministry statement, Sheikh Mohammed, who also serves as Qatar’s foreign minister, was welcomed by Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed bin Abdulkarim Al-Khereiji upon his arrival in the country.

The statement did not provide any details regarding the visit’s duration or its agenda.

US President Donald Trump has said that negotiations with Iran for a deal to cease hostilities could resume “maybe at some point,” also reiterating his assertion that the US has “complete control” of the Strait of Hormuz.

“Right now, I think the situation is so good,” Trump told reporters when asked about the war in Iran, adding that the talks could resume “maybe at some point.”

Turning to Iran having a nuclear weapons capability, he said: “They have to get rid of it completely. They have to get rid of nuclear weapons. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. You know why? Cause they'd use it, and we're not going to let them use it. So Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, and they won't.”

He said that “we have possession, complete control of the Strait (of Hormuz). I mean, outside of nuisance value, and there is nuisance value when they shoot a drone every once in a while.”